“Okay,” I breathe, because apparently, my brain has short-circuited. “That’s new.”
He doesn’t smile or make a joke. He just looks up at me with an expression I haven’t seen since the night before I left—all raw and wanting and terrified.
Great. This is exactly what my already-fragile emotional state needed—Rowan King on his knees, looking at me with actual feelings.
“Rowan,” I whisper, because that’s all I’ve got.
His hands find my legs and start sliding up, slowly. Each inch of contact makes my skin light up. My body’s having a complete system malfunction, and he’s barely touched me.
I forget how breathing works when his fingers trace over my knees. Completely abandon the concept when his mouth follows. A kiss lands just above my knee—soft, warm, and way too reverent for someone who once called me “aggressively chaotic.”
Another kiss, higher. Then one more, higher still, and suddenly the oversized sweatshirt feels unbearable.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs against my thigh, because of course, he notices everything.
“Because you’re kneeling,” I manage to say, though my voice sounds wrecked. “It’s very disorienting. You’re usually looking down at people, both literally and metaphorically.”
“Then come here.” His voice does something complicated to my insides. “And let me worship you.”
Oh, fuck.
That shouldn’t make my heart hurt. It shouldn’t make me want to cry and laugh and possibly throw something all at once. But it does, because no one’s ever said that to me before. Not with devotion instead of just heat. Not with reverence instead of conquest.
He looks different tonight. Unguarded. Whatever happened downstairs knocked something loose in him that he’s been holding together with spite and good tailoring.
His hands slide under the hem of my sweatshirt, and my arms go up automatically because apparently, my body has decided we’re doing this whether my brain has caught up or not. The fabric disappears in one smooth pull, and there I am, vulnerable and exposed and trying really hard not to think about how my bra is from Target and definitely doesn’t match my underwear.
But he doesn’t look at my chest. He doesn’t do the typical male inventory check. He looks at me with an intensity that makes me feel more naked than the actual nakedness.
“You don’t have to,” I start, but my voice cracks embarrassingly. “What I mean is: you don’t have to be gentle with me. You don’t have to pretend this means something. You don’t have to treat me with care I haven’t earned.”
His brow furrows, and pain flashes across his features.
“I need to,” he says, as simple as a simple fact.
And then he kisses me, and oh, this is different. This isn’t the angry kissing from earlier, or the performative kissing for the partners. This is slow and deep and devastating. It tastes of all the arguments we never finished and all the apologies we never made.
My hands tangle in his stupidly expensive shirt. His palm curves around my waist, warm and solid, and I realize he’s holding on just as tight.
When I kiss him back, really kiss him back, something inside me cracks open. Some carefully guarded thing I’ve been protecting since I walked away from us. The feeling makes my eyes burn.
He takes his time with me, treating my body with the same intense focus he brings to everything that matters to him. The first place his mouth goes isn’t where I expect—not the obvious destinations that usually get immediate attention from guys. No, he goes for my shoulder. My shoulder.
He brushes a kiss there asking permission for something we both know he doesn’t need permission for.
“Rowan...” His name comes out broken, a confession.
But he doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he drags his mouth across my collarbone with the intense focus. His lips find the center of my chest, pressing kisses to my sternum that feel too significant for what we’re supposed to be doing. Then my ribs, each kiss deliberate and patient. He’s being thorough about driving me completely insane, and it’s working.
By the time his mouth grazes the side of my breast, my back has already arched off the bed. My fingers are buried in his hair probably destroying whatever product he uses.
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, and there’s something fierce in his expression that makes my stomach flip.
“Something happened,” he says, voice rough and barely controlled. “Downstairs. In that room.”
My whole body tenses. “What did they say?”
“It doesn’t matter what they said.” His jaw clenches hard. “What matters is that I sat there listening, and all I could think about was how much more you are than what any of those assholes could ever understand.”
